


rose-colored boy

by oddlyqueer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Grantaire, Enjolras Is Bad At Communicating, FTM Enjolras, Grantaire & Éponine Thénardier Friendship, Grantaire's POV, Jehan and Musichetta are Siblings, Les Amis de l'ABC Shenanigans, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Binary Jean Prouvaire, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jehan, Slow Burn, Trans Enjolras, Trans Male Character, but seriously so much angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-03-18 00:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18975124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddlyqueer/pseuds/oddlyqueer
Summary: New year, new Grantaire. That's what he'd thought. He'd start actually paying attention in school, be the good kid like he used to be way back when. Eponine had his back, and his parents... well, he was pretty sure they meant well. This year would be completely different.It turned out, he had been exactly right—just not in the way he'd expected.What do you do when you go from a cynical, uncaring, straight-by-default stoner to... someone completely different?





	1. you got me nervous

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [World Ain't Ready](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306315) by [idiopathicsmile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiopathicsmile/pseuds/idiopathicsmile). 



> yo what's up everyone! it's me again. this is gonna be a long multichap fic and i really hope you like it! again this is inspired by the lovely @idiopathicsmile's "world ain't ready", which was the first fic i read in the les mis fandom. what a wonderful fic amirite? great. 
> 
> anyway i hope you enjoy this.

Grantaire sat in the front of the classroom. Not by choice, of course. The duct tape on his backpack had essentially exploded and he had been—not late, exactly, but not as early as he usually was on the first day of school. When he got the tape fixed and he had finally managed to get to his English class, the only seat left was next to some random guy wearing a red hoodie reading a book the size of Grantaire’s head. 

“Hey,” he said, dropping his backpack onto the floor next to him. The duct tape on the side made a worrying ripping sound, but he ignored it. “What’s up?”

Red Hoodie Guy ignored him. Hopefully because that book was very interesting, and not because he'd managed to piss another classmate off. Grantaire craned his neck to try and see the cover. “A Tale of Two Cities,” he observed, nodding. “Is it any good? I mean, it’s a classic, so presumably it’s okay, but, like, it’s kind of pretentious to spend your time reading A Tale of Two Cities.”

He closed the book, keeping his thumb in his place—about halfway through—and glared at Grantaire. He noticed that he had pretty blue eyes, which weren’t really as pretty as they could be because they were staring daggers through his head. 

He leaned back, glancing around for a few moments before trying to start up a conversation again. “Cool. So, uh, is that our assigned reading? Did we have to do summer reading? Because if we did, it would honestly be better to just say you didn’t do it instead of trying to read the whole book right now.”

The guy sighed, looking inordinately angry. Grantaire was pretty good at making people angry at him, though, so this didn’t surprise him much—even though this conversation mattered more to him than it usually would. New year, new Grantaire, less slacking off and getting depressed instead of doing his work. He leaned back in his chair and watched as the guy opened the book again and started reading.

The door opened and the teacher came in. Red Hoodie Guy—he probably should learn his name at some point—stood up, book still in hand, and walked over to the teacher. They talked quietly for a moment, and he wrote something down in a folder quickly before nodding to the teacher and walking back to his seat.

“What was that about?” Grantaire asked. He just got a glare in return. “Okay, jeez.” 

After a moment, the teacher started the usual first-day-of-school spiel. She introduced herself as Mrs. Davison and pulled out that same folder, starting attendance. Grantaire stared at him, attempting to be discreet, until Red Hoodie Guy started looking ready to say something.

“Matteo Enjolras?”

“Here,” he said, and his voice, holy  _ shit. _ Grantaire almost missed his name being called. 

“Rufus Grantaire?”

“Here.”

“Do you have anything you prefer to go by?”

Grantaire shrugged. He liked R, but teachers usually gave him weird looks when he told them to call him a one-letter nickname. His fifth grade teacher had decided on “Roof” as an appropriate nickname for him, and from then on he had vowed to never let teachers give him nicknames again. “Rufus is just fine for me.”

She continued taking attendance, and he snuck a glance at Red Hoodie Guy—Enjolras. He had already finished a significant amount of that book, and Grantaire swore that he was at least a chapter further than the first time he looked at him. It was honestly kind of impressive.

Mrs. Davison started talking about the curriculum, passing out a sheet with a list of books they’d be covering over the course of the year. Grantaire leaned back and tried to tune it all out. Usually he wouldn't really care about the syllabus, but Enjolras seemed genuinely engrossed in it for some reason, so he took a look over it.  _ A Tale of Two Cities, _ interestingly enough, was nowhere on the list. What he did notice was the amount of semi-interesting books on the list. There was even one section that listed a few books you could choose between.  _ Maybe this year won’t suck ass after all _ , he thought. 

For the rest of class, he didn’t listen, just watched Enjolras read. He was really fast, finishing a huge chunk of the book in the mere 45-minute period. Grantaire pulled out his sketchbook about halfway through and started drawing him. The pose was perfect. He stared down at his book with his head propped up on his upstage—no, his  _ further away  _ hand, no theater speak here—and his other hand resting gently on the side of the book to hold the pages in place. It would be a good sketch for class if he could use it. Of course, he probably wouldn’t get permission. Not like he’d even ask, anyway, he didn't even ask  _ Eponine _ to use her sketches when he drew her, and she was his best—and only—friend.

The bell rang and he got up, watching as Enjolras slung his backpack over one shoulder. His backpack was in much better condition than Grantaire’s—though that wasn’t really a high bar, his was literally held together with duct tape. There were pins on it, too, a rainbow and an anarchy A, but a few others that he didn’t recognize. 

“Hey, um, you’re Matteo, right?” Enjolras turned, still glaring at him. He immediately regretted it. “I’m, uh, I’m Rufus. I sit next to you?”

“Yes, I’d noticed.” 

“I just—um—neither of us know anyone in here, so maybe we could be friends? I guess? This sounds kind of stupid, I’m rambling, but I kind of want someone to talk to.”

“I don’t need a friend in class,” he said coldly, and walked out of the room, leaving Grantaire standing alone in the classroom.

—

“Seriously,  _ what  _ is his  _ problem _ ?” Eponine practically yelled, mouth full of sandwich. “Like, that’s not a thing you do. No. What a fucking asshole, right?”

“I dunno,” he said, sitting at the empty lunch table. “He seemed kind of cool, but like, that was kind of rude, I guess.”

Enjolras walked into the cafeteria, practically glowing. He looked really good, and Grantaire couldn’t help but stare. Eponine sighed. 

“That the guy?” Grantaire nodded. “He kind of looks like an asshole, too. Look at him. All blonde and pretentious-looking. I can just imagine his voice, too.” 

“Oh yeah? Do enlighten me,” he said with a laugh.

She took a deep breath and proceeded to imitate what she thought Enjolras sounded like—which turned out to sound like Draco Malfoy with a head cold. “Oh, look at me, I’m Matteo the pretty boy, I’m a pretentious asshole who’s mean to people who just want to talk to me.”

“Stop! He’ll hear!” Grantaire hisses through his laughter. 

“I’m blonde, blah blah blah, if I didn’t read so much Dickens I’d be a bitchy cheerleader,” she said, her imitation becoming more feminine. She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “I look like an angel from a Renaissance painting but I’m needlessly rude to people who could potentially be my friends.”

Enjolras looked over at them with what looked to be a hurt expression. He was obviously listening to their conversation. Eponine didn’t seem to notice, just kept laughing at her own imitation.

“Seriously, Ep, that’s—maybe tone it down a little,” Grantaire said, looking over to Enjolras, standing in the line by himself. “Look.”

“C’mon, he’s fine! It’s okay!”

“Dude. Look at him. He looks seriously upset.” He gestured at Enjolras. He looked upset—well, not quite upset, but nervous. Someone behind him in the line said something, and though the lunchroom was much too loud for them to hear, Enjolras flinched. He looked genuinely scared now, and he left the line, abandoning his tray and walking over to a table with a bunch of people sitting there.

“Shit, man, now I feel bad,” she said, leaning back. “Whatever. He’s an asshole anyway.”

“I don’t think he’s an asshole, I think he’s just… I don’t know.” Grantaire watched him sit with them, and  _ no _ , he was  _ not _ staring, that was  _ not _ what he was doing at all. 

She rolled her eyes. “He’s an asshole. Flat out. He was rude to you for, like, no reason at all, and whatever happened—I don’t want to say he  _ deserved _ it, but it was probably warranted? I mean, look at him. He’s probably rude to everyone.”

“Jeez, Ep, seriously?” He cast another glance over at Enjolras. One of the kids sitting next to him looked worried. Grantaire couldn’t tell what was being said, but Enjolras kept nodding. 

“Stop staring! Who’s the one being rude now?” Eponine tugged the edge of his beanie over his eyes, pulling him out of his reverie.

“Sorry.” He sighed and pushed his beanie back up, looking over at Enjolras. He was talking animatedly with the red-haired guy sitting next to him, gesturing vaguely towards a stack of books in front of him. Grantaire had the sudden urge to walk over and sit at the table with them, to be involved in the discussion and to see what had Enjolras so excited. It was stupid, and he knew it was stupid, but he really wanted to be there. He just looked so invested in the conversation, so excited to be talking about it, that Grantaire wanted to be excited about it too.

He stood up, against his better judgment. The fact that getting up to throw out the remnants of his lunch took him right by Enjolras’s table was a  _ complete  _ coincidence. 

“Where are you going?” Eponine said through clenched teeth. He didn’t answer her, just took his tray over to the trash can that sat by Enjolras’s table. They went quiet as he approached, and Grantaire snuck a glance at the books sitting in front of Enjolras. Just to know. He was pretty sure he knew, like, half the title of one. 

“Hey, um, Rufus, right?” Enjolras called. “Can I, uh, talk to you?”

_ What the fuck. _ He almost dropped his tray in the trash can. “Y—yeah. Sure.” He walked over to the table. 

“Look,” he said, seeming almost embarrassed. “I—I was rude earlier. Before. During class. I guess that much you already know. My friends tell me I have a tendency to… a tendency to not consider people’s feelings before I speak. I just… I wanted to apologize, I guess? For that? It was unnecessary.” 

“Um. Thanks.” He moved to leave, but Enjolras reached out a hand, not quite touching him but close enough for Grantaire to feel like he was just set on fire.

“I wanted to say that if you want to talk or hang out during class that I’m okay with that,” he said quickly. “Like you suggested. I don’t have any friends in that class, so.”

“Cool,” he said, smiling uncomfortably. “I’ll, uh, catch you during class then, I guess.” He gave an awkward finger-gun by way of a goodbye and walked back over to Eponine, bright red.

“Excuse me, but what the  _ fuck _ ? What the fuck  _ was _ that, R?”

“I don’t know!” he said, panic settling in. “Oh god, the fucking finger guns, I must have looked like such a dumbass—”

“I mean why were you talking to him?” she hissed, wide-eyed. “He was so rude to you! You shouldn’t give him a second of your time, much less actually going over to talk to him  _ on purpose _ !”

“I—he apologized!” Grantaire sighed and pulled on the string of his hoodie. “I don’t—that’s the only trash can, what the hell else was I supposed to do with my trash?”

“Give it to me or  _ something _ ! Literally anything but that!” She stood up and swung her backpack over one shoulder, glaring at him. At this point she was practically yelling. “You know what? Forget it. Fucking forget it. If you’re going to spend time with assholes, with people who are  _ rude _ to you for literally no reason, then you can go do that. Have fun, I guess.”

Grantaire stood up to go after her, but she put her hand up, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Leave it,” she warned, looking back at him for a moment before walking out, leaving him alone, standing awkwardly in the middle of the lunchroom. Everyone was staring at him, and he waved awkwardly at them before speed-walking towards Enjolras's table, still blushing bright red, but for a different reason.

“Um. Hi.”

“Hey,” said a nerdy-looking guy wearing a blue cardigan. “Wanna sit?”

The rest of lunch was a blur. A debate-filled, extremely interesting blur, but a blur nonetheless. At one point Bahorel sat down, which was surprising, and greeted them all by name, which was even more surprising. He didn’t really expect a guy from the wrestling team—one of Grantaire’s old friends, even—to hang out with them.

“Oh, hey, R,” he said. “Have you met my friends? Everyone, meet R.” He waved at the weird collective of people sitting around him. This was probably the entirety of the school’s diversity—race, sexuality, religion, and, let’s be honest, political opinion. 

“R, this is Claude Combeferre.” He gestured to the guy who greeted him, who was wearing a Mothman Festival t-shirt under the cardigan. “He’s the smartest guy on the entire planet, and somehow still believes that cryptids are real and not some shitty Photoshop—”

“They are real!” Combeferre interjected. “He’s just stupid. Don’t listen to him, R.”

He continued talking to Grantaire about Mothman, and as the lunch bell rang and they got ready to head to class, he looked back at them with a smile.

They weren’t the kind of people he would normally hang out with. Like, at all. But hell, Enjolras seemed cool, and while they were weird, it was a good weird.

As he walked to class, he ran into Eponine, sitting against the lockers and redoing her eyeliner in her cell phone camera. He leaned against the lockers next to her, not saying anything. 

“You gonna talk to me or what,” she said, not looking up from her phone. 

“I’m sorry, I guess?” He slid down to her level, leaning his head back against the cold metal of the lockers. “I just feel kind of bad that we fought. And Matteo isn’t even that bad. He’s kind of uptight, but hell, he’s nice if you talk to him, and his friends seem kind of cool, too, and one even likes cryptids like you do, he had a Mothman t-shirt on—”

“Oh yeah, like that’s gonna convince me—”

“I just think you should give it a try. We could talk to them? Or just—I wanna be friends with you and with them so please don’t hate them.”

“Jeez, R, you seriously think I hate them?” She finished up her eyeliner and closed the cap, tucking her phone into her bag. “I just don’t like that he was rude to you. If he’s better now, then it’s okay, I guess. I just… don’t want you to get hurt.”

He sighed, closing his eyes and still leaning against the lockers. “I won’t. Trust me.”


	2. the world you want to see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy pride month, friends!

Grantaire wandered aimlessly towards the art room, opening the door and walking in. His eyes were immediately drawn to a person standing there, completely covered in paint.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wash that off?” she asked, gesturing to the person’s hair, which was dripping a lovely shade of rose pink onto the floor.

“No, that’s quite alright! I can wash it out when I get home, and there’s not really much point in getting it out anyway. I like it,” they said, twirling one strand around their finger and leaving a streak of pink on their hand. “It’s a fashion statement,” they said decidedly.

“Jehan, you can’t go around school like that,” she said, her voice desperate at this point. “What if you leave a mess?”

“Oh.” The person—Jehan, apparently—seemed convinced by this. “That’s right. Well, at least if I go wash it out my hair won’t get stuck together. Hm. Maybe I should dye it this color.”

“Sink’s in the back room,” the teacher said. When Jehan departed and the sink started to run, she sighed in relief. “Hey, Rufus. Here to pick up your work?”

“Who was that?”

“Oh, that’s Jehan. You two are in the same class, I’m surprised you haven’t interacted before.”

“We might’ve, but, like, I don’t really recognize people when their whole body is pink?”

She laughed. “Right. The paint.”

“How did that even happen, anyway?”

“Well, they were here to pick up a project they’d been working on. Something for a club, I think, posters or something. Anyways, they came into the back room to grab it, and knocked the shelf with the big paint buckets—the ones we use for murals. One of them was kind of poorly put away, and someone had forgotten to put the lid on, so it fell right on their head and spilled paint everywhere.”

“Ouch.”

“They’re supposedly fine. They say it doesn’t hurt, and according to Jehan they have a ‘tough skull’.” She laughed. “Luckily the posters were okay. That would’ve been even worse.”

Jehan returned, no longer pink. Their clothes, however, were a different story. Grantaire had never seen a white sweater turn such a different color. At least, it might have been white at some point. It was pink on the shoulders, sure, but it also had bluish stains in it, and was emanating a kind of chemical-y smell. Like the tables after someone cleaned up for the day.

“I tried to get it off with wet paper towels and then brush cleaner, but it didn’t work,” they said apologetically. “The brush cleaner just made it worse, actually. So I just got what I could off and then stood under the hand dryer for a little while so I wasn’t soaking wet.” After a minute, they noticed Grantaire. “Oh. Hi.”

“Sorry about your sweater,” Grantaire said. 

They shrugged. “I think it looks better. White is so boring, you know? And it goes better with my jeans this way.” The jeans in question had been covered in embroidered skulls of various animals, each in bright pastel colors. There were a few paint splatters on them as well. Grantaire noticed, with some amusement, that Jehan’s nails were each painted a different neon shade. There was also still some paint on them, standing out alongside the already numerous freckles on their pale face.

“Are you ready to go now?”

“Oh, yeah. Wait, didn’t you sit with us at lunch a couple weeks ago? You should totally come with me to the meeting! You’re friends with Matteo, you’ll fit right in.”

“I was—uh—” He scrambled for an excuse, but he had nothing. “I was about to head home, actually, my car’s—”

“You drive! Great! If the meeting runs over, which it probably will, you won’t be stuck here!” They grabbed Grantaire’s hand, still holding the posters under one arm, and pulled him towards the door with impressive strength.

“It’s this way,” Jehan said, practically sprinting down the hallway. “They probably already started, but since it’s only our first meeting of the year we probably aren’t doing anything important.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your… thing.” He paused. “What even is this club, anyway? Is it, like—” He had no ideas. The first thing that popped into his head, embarrassingly enough, was the thought that it was a GSA. “What is it?”

“Well, the  _ technical  _ name is the Advocates for a Better Country,” Jehan said in a pretentious tone. “But we all just call it the ABC Club. It’s not the best name in the world, but hey, I wasn’t the one who came up with it.” 

“Who did?”

“Matteo? He’s the one who started the club last year, too,” Jehan said, finally coming to a stop in front of a classroom. “Here. Just inside.”

When they opened the door, a tall guy sitting on one of the desks noticed Jehan's sweater and sighed. This was someone Grantaire didn’t recognize, who hadn’t been sitting at the lunch table a few days before. He had a shaved head, medium-dark skin, and an impressive number of Band-aids on his hands.

“What did you do to your sweater?!” someone shrieked from the corner. Grantaire recognized them—Courfeyrac, from the day before. He looked genuinely distressed at the condition of Jehan’s shirt.

“I spilled paint on it,” they said cheerfully. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“No, it’s not  _ pretty _ ! It’s a disaster!” Courfeyrac sighed angrily, running a hand through his hair a few times before managing to calm down.

“If we can  _ please _ get back on track now,” Enjolras said tersely, gesturing vaguely at no one with his index cards. “I would very much like to continue with the meeting.”

“Okay. Sorry.” Courfeyrac sat back down in the chair he’d abandoned, crossing his legs and leaning back. 

“As I was saying,” Enjolras said. “We as a group are striving to make this school a better place for all students, especially racial, sexuality, and gender minorities. Since this school evidently has an agenda to prevent us from doing so, we will be acting somewhat outside the bounds of the school’s  _ technical _ rules.”

“Is that why there’s not a teacher here?” a blonde-haired girl in the corner said. He vaguely recognized her—Cosette Fauchelevent. Wasn’t she on the dance team or something? She was definitely popular, and was sitting next to a guy who looked like he didn’t really want to be there.

“Yes. We are not an authorized club. We were denied access to a teacher advisor and proper ability to advertise the club—”

“Have you asked for it?” 

Everyone was staring at Grantaire. He looked around at them.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, like, I know you guys are doing the Right Thing or whatever,” he said. “But have you asked for it? Permission, I mean. To do this.”

“You don’t think we asked for it?” Enjolras said, his voice tense. “I’m sorry, but if you think that the only possible reason that a social equality club could be denied the right to be a real school club is that they  _ didn’t ask for it _ —”

“No! No, I mean—I didn’t mean it like that,” Grantaire said. He looked around helplessly. The rest of the club looked to be on Enjolras’s side. Combeferre crossed his arms. 

“What I think he means is that maybe if we tried a little harder and asked with a little more force, we might be able to get it,” Bahorel interjected. Grantaire looked at him gratefully. “Like, less asking, more making a list of demands?”

The mood relaxed almost immediately. “That’s a good idea in concept, Camille,” Enjolras said, putting down his index cards and sitting down on the table, kicking his heels against the leg of the desk. “Do any of you have any suggestions as to what we could do?”

“Uh, maybe we could—” He was out of ideas already. “Stage a protest?” It was the first thing that popped into his head, but he didn’t regret a thing. Enjolras was practically glowing. He looked so excited at the idea of that, it almost made Grantaire feel proud of saying that. 

“Let’s think about this a little first,” Combeferre said cautiously. “Don’t just jump headfirst into a protest with no prior thought.” He said this as if someone in the room—probably Enjolras—had actually done this before.

Enjolras sighed. “We are stuck in this school with no help and no one who is willing to help us. Thinking about it will only waste our time and make it so that we can’t help as many people.”

“Don’t just jump into this,” he warned. “You’ve done things like this before, and it’s never worked out well for you.”

They continued arguing, but Grantaire had tuned them out at this point. He was just watching Enjolras talk. 

When Enjolras was angry, it manifested itself in many different ways. Grantaire had noticed this during English class. The majority of the time, his anger was colder. He was all hard angles, glaring at everyone who moved even an inch nearer to him than was comfortable. It was characterized by cold glares and sharp expressions. 

This wasn’t even close to that. It looked less like cold anger and more like righteous fury. He felt like he was watching him in slow motion. The light from the window behind him made the nearly invisible flyaways of Enjolras’s hair glow, forming a halo around his head. It was so distracting that he barely even noticed when Jehan tapped him on the shoulder with one paint-covered finger.

“You okay? You look a little out of it.”

“What? Yeah. What happened?” He blinked himself out of his reverie. Enjolras and Combeferre had stopped arguing, and were now talking quietly in the corner. Bahorel and Courfeyrac were sitting in a corner, and one of the girls—he thought her name was Musichetta, maybe, he had said it was pretty at lunch a few days ago—was building a tower of pencils on a desk.

“They got off-topic and the meeting’s pretty much over for now. Matteo’ll realize that nothing’s getting done and he’ll call us back to order in a few minutes.” As if on cue, Enjolras looked around and tapped the edge of his stack of index cards against the desk. “Yep, there he goes again. This is… it’s kind of futile. They’ll just get off topic again, and he’ll call them to order again, and then it’ll be 4 and we’ll have to go home.”

“Everyone!” He tapped the index cards again, a hand raised. Everyone quieted down almost immediately. It was impressive how quickly he could get them to settle down. “Thank you. Let’s talk about our game plan for the posters. Jehan has made us some posters—they’re beautiful, by the way, and this is a  _ lot  _ of glitter glue, wow.” He looked down at his shoes, which were now covered in holographic glitter, and sighed. 

“Anyway,” he said, brushing some remaining glitter off his hands. “They’re going to go in the hallways so we can spread awareness of the club. I was thinking that we could spend the rest of the club time putting them up.”

“Sounds good!” a smaller kid in the back said. He stood up, leaning heavily on a crutch, and grabbed a poster. “You have any tape?”

“Yes, I have tape,” Enjolras said with a sigh. “It’s in the usual spot.”

Cosette raised her hand. “I don’t—”

“You don’t know where the usual spot is.” He gestured to a cabinet in the back of the room before pausing. “Wait. We have new members. We should all introduce ourselves, that’ll help make things easier. You all know me already, I’m Matteo Enjolras and I’m a junior. He/him pronouns.”

“Lucas Bossuet,” said the kid with the shaved head. “He/him, and I’m a senior.”

“Maxime—uh, Max. Max Joly. He/him. I’m a junior,” said the kid on the crutch.

“I’m Christian Feuilly. You can just call me Chris, though,” said the redhead in the back. He had been at the lunch table, too. “I’m a senior and I use he/him pronouns.”

“I’m Claude Combeferre, I’m a junior, and I use he/him pronouns.”

“Jean Courfeyrac, he/him pronouns, and a junior. I’m also cooler than him,” he said with a laugh, pointing at Combeferre, who sighed.

“Um, Cosette Fauchelevent, I’m a sophomore, and I use… she? She pronouns?” She paused and looked over at the boy next to her. “Are you going to introduce yourself?”

“Marius. I’m a junior.” He looked frustrated with the formalities. 

“And your pronouns?” Enjolras prompted. 

“You can’t tell?”

He sighed and glared at Marius. “Tell us what pronouns you use, Marius.”

“Male pronouns,” he said with a glare. Cosette whispered something to him quickly.

“Musichetta Prouvaire. I’m a senior, and I use she/her pronouns. This is my sibling, Jehan,” she said, gesturing to them. 

“Hi! I’m a sophomore and I use they/them pronouns.”

“My name’s Camille. Uh, Camille Bahorel. You can call me Camille or Cam, if you want, most people do. I’m a senior, and he/him.”

They all looked to Grantaire, who looked around. Everyone was done. After a moment, his one remaining brain cell reminded him that he should probably introduce himself, too.

“Oh. Uh. Rufus Grantaire—you can call me R though? I know it’s, like, kind of a dumb name, my parents are  _ great _ . Anyway. I’m a junior, and I use he/him pronouns.”

Enjolras seemed pleased. It was weird seeing him smile—weird, but cute. “It’s nice to meet you, everyone. New members are always welcome. But anyway, back to business. Everyone grab some posters, tape is over there, and we can get started. We have half an hour, try to get them up all over the school, okay?”

“We have permission to do this, right?”

“Posters are allowed everywhere in the school. We aren’t doing anything wrong just by advertising our club.”

“But, like, we’re not technically a—” he put air quotes around the next part—“‘real club’, right? Is it allowed?”

“Yes, it’s allowed,” Combeferre said. “We have authorization from one teacher, which technically makes us a ‘real club’, even though we don’t get funding or official recognition.”

Everyone got started. Grantaire teamed up with Cosette, who picked up a surprising number of posters, and headed out. They made their way up to the second floor, then the third. No one else seemed to be taking that area, so they stuck one above the water fountain, a few on random bulletin boards around the hallway, and one on each bathroom door. Cosette looked around, then back to the bathrooms with a confused expression.

“What’s up?” 

“There’s no gender neutral bathroom?”

“Uh. No.” He looked around the hallway to confirm it. “Why? Should there be?”

“I mean, yeah, of course there should be. What do nonbinary people—or just trans people in general, even, what do they do?”

“Use the nurse’s office,” called a familiar voice from behind them. Grantaire turned around and there was Enjolras, holding more of those posters. “They go to the nurse’s office and pretend to be sick to use the bathroom there. If they even come out at all. Most of them just stay in the closet and don’t talk about being trans to anyone.”

“How do you—”

“Jehan. That’s what they usually do, at least.”

“Oh.” Grantaire stood there, looking down awkwardly at his beat-up sneakers. “That’s kind of shitty. Wow.”

Enjolras shrugged. “It is what it is. For now, at least.”

“Wait, why are you here?” 

“I figured no one was here, and I wanted to put some posters up. Plus I had to use the bathroom, so if you two want to go put these up in the science wing, I’m going to go.” He gestured at the bathrooms, now decorated with glittery posters.    
“Oh, yeah, sure.” He headed out, following Cosette down. As he left for the club room, he looked behind him, and noticed the girls’ bathroom door swinging closed.  _ Shit. _ He hoped someone hadn't accidentally walked into their conversation. He looked around and saw no one, so he figured they were safe and headed back downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading, everyone!! i'll see you next week. as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated!


	3. low key, no pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres some discussion of dead stuff in here fyi (jehans into taxidermy bc of course they are)

The school day had already worn him out. While the meeting yesterday had been fun, it had also drastically reduced the amount of time he could do his homework in, resulting in a very late night and a lack of time to get dressed in the morning. He usually put some semblance of effort into his appearance, especially on school days, but he hadn’t bothered today, opting to just shove his hair into a beanie and leave for the bus. 

School hadn’t been any better. He had freaked out over thinking he lost an assignment when in fact they just hadn’t had any homework in the class, and the teacher had given him the “you know you can always talk to the counselors if you’re feeling stressed” talk, which he had nodded along to, like always, and promptly ignored, like always.

Walking into art class, Grantaire put his project back on his usual spot at a table and looked around for the charcoal set he was using. Jehan was sitting at a table alone, working on something that was very... red. 

Today’s outfit was even more extreme than the day before, a pair of bright green corduroy overalls with yellow bees printed on them over a matching yellow t-shirt. Their hair was braided into two ponytails, which were pinned up haphazardly on their head to keep them out of the way of the paints.

He picked up the charcoals and his sketch, then headed over to Jehan’s table, putting his stuff down beside them. 

“Hey, R!” they said cheerfully, dipping their brush into more red paint. “I like your hoodie.”

“Thanks,” he said, looking over their shoulder at their painting. It was a photorealistic rendition of what appeared to be a deer skull with roses in the eye sockets and a flower chain draped around the antlers. “What are you, um… is that a photo or a painting?”

“Oh, that’s my skull. Not  _ my _ skull, obviously, but a skull that I own. I found him in the woods.”

“It’s… cool.”

“Thanks!” They smudged around the paint on the roses a bit more, looking down at it. “He’s not my only skull. I have like three? And some bones too. I’m trying to get started on, like, taxidermy? It’s cool. I like it.”

Grantaire was more than a little overwhelmed. “Wow. How do you even—”

“Mostly from carcasses in the woods. I learned how off Tumblr!”

“Oh. Cool.” 

“Yeah, it’s really weird, I know. But I like it! I also press flowers, if you want to talk about a less gross dead-thing-preservation method.”

“That’s kind of cool,” he said, trying to make conversation. “How did you even get into the whole, I dunno, dead-thing-preservation scene anyway?”

“My dad, mostly. Not my biological dad, my dad. I was adopted, so when I say my dad I mean my  _ real _ dad—I’m getting off track. Anyway. Dead stuff. He collects, like, bugs? In those glass cases? Like they have in museums and whatever. Mostly butterflies. So I kind of got into it because of him. He even built me a case for my bones and stuff.”

“Wow.” He was confused, but just nodded along. “So what other kind of bones do you have?”

“Well, I have the deer skull, a cat skull, and a skull that we’re pretty sure is a wolf but could just be a dog. Then we have like half a bird skeleton and some coyote bones and a bunch of deer antlers.” They look down at their painting. “This one’s my favorite ’cause it still has the antlers attached, which is kinda rare.”

“Do you have any other collections? Besides the flowers and the bones and the bugs?”

“Yeah! I have a lot of cacti and a bunch of really shiny rocks and also Pokemon cards, but that’s not as interesting. All my cacti have names. I might have a picture, gimme a second to finish this flower and I’ll show you.”

Jehan talked about a mile a minute, constantly jumping from one subject to another with barely any regard for their conversation partner. Grantaire fucking loved it. He didn’t have to do any of the work at all, he could just let Jehan go off and it would be at least five minutes until they stopped to remember that Grantaire even existed.

“Okay! So these are my cacti. That’s Jasmine, that’s Esmeralda—I got on a kick of naming them after Disney ladies for a while—that one’s Dominic, that one’s Cymbeline, and that one’s Matteo.”

“Does he know you named a cactus after him?”

“I think it’s more he was named after my cactus,” Jehan said with a laugh. “It’s appropriate, right? Because he’s prickly!”

“Yeah, I guess it is appropriate,” he said, distracted by the mental image of Enjolras finding out he had a cactus named after him. “So what else have you done for class? Besides the skull, I mean. I might have seen your stuff at the exhibitions.”

“Um… for our portraits last year I painted Chetta,” they said. “She was really willing to let me paint her, and her skin tone is super easy. Easier than pale tones, at least. All skin tones are really hard to do.”

“I think I remember that one,” he said. “The one with the fish, right?”

“Yeah! Those are her pet koi. Jekyll and Hyde. She used to have more, but they don’t technically belong to us anymore? We gave them to our neighbor for their new pond. I think their names were, like… hm. Jonathan Harker—like from Dracula—and… oh yeah, Clerval! He’s from Frankenstein? I don’t know if you’ve read them, or…”

“Yeah, I’ve read them,” he said with a smile. “Those are some cute fish names. Is she big into classic horror?” 

“Oh yeah. She used to collect H.P. Lovecraft books like I collect skulls. It got out of hand for a while, actually. Now all her horror stuff lives in the basement. Did you know she has  _ two copies  _ of the Necronomicon?”

They talked for the rest of class about random things. Musichetta’s horror collection, their childhood, the woods behind their house. Anything and everything that popped into their head. It was surprisingly interesting, and he zoned out for so long that he almost didn’t notice when the teacher called for them to clean up.

“Oh. Hey, almost the end of the day! Where are you heading next?”

“Uh, just a couple doors down. The English wing. Study hall.”

“Awesome! I have AP Language Studies next, that’s right there. We can walk together!”

As they cleaned up, Grantaire noticed that he’d barely gotten any work done on his sketch, but he didn’t really care. He’d gotten ahead at home, so it didn’t matter much. 

“Let’s get going,” Jehan said. “I’m so ready for class. We’re starting our short story unit!”

Grantaire listened to them chatter on until he got to class, where they said goodbye and he headed into the study hall room. Signing in and sitting down in his usual seat, he was surprised when Combeferre sat down next to him. He was wearing another cryptid t-shirt, this one apparently from the Jersey Devil Festival. 

“Cool shirt,” Grantaire said. “Did you go?” 

“I wish. No, one of my friends who lives in the area went and got me it. She’s great, I love her. I really want to go next year, though!”

“So you’re into cryptids, huh?”

“Yeah. What I’m also really into is studying for, um, American History.” He gestured to Grantaire’s open textbook. “You should finish that. Not that I’m trying to order you around or whatever, it’s just that—”

“Yeah, I get it. And I really should study, I didn’t read the chapter.” He kept reading, somehow getting invested in the textbook and really studying for a few minutes until his mind drifted to the meeting yesterday. 

Enjolras. He was still a mystery. Even seeing him in English class for the past few weeks hadn’t cleared anything up. Tomorrow was Friday, and would mark a week since the first day of school, but he still hadn’t even figured out anything else about him. He was usually quiet, but when he wasn’t, he still had a quiet demeanor about him. Still, his anger and his passion for justice spoke louder than his words ever could. 

Grantaire sighed. He sounded like a kid with a crush. This whole thing was stupid. He should just put it all out of his mind and focus on his work. 

For a minute, he was actually successful, until he got to a section about an uprising and started wondering what Enjolras would think about that, and he got distracted all over again. Every time he tried to focus, it would happen again. He would see a reference to anti-war efforts, or spot someone wearing red walking by the classroom, and he’d start thinking about him again.

When the bell finally rang and gave him a reprieve from the constant thoughts, he stood up, putting his stuff into his bag. Combeferre did the same, and as he did, Grantaire noticed a pin on his bag that he didn’t recognize. Pink, yellow, blue, with a symbol in the middle that looked like a P with an arrow attached.

“What’s your pin mean?”

“Oh.” Combeferre looked down at it. “Um? It’s a… it’s the pan flag. Pansexual. Like, you’re attracted to people regardless of their gender?”

“Cool. Wish I was that. It’d make dating a whole lot easier.”

Combeferre nodded awkwardly. “Yeah, well, it’s also—”

“Plus, like, guys?  _ Wow _ . If I was pan or bi or gay or whatever, then I could just, like, date a guy, you know? But now I just… whatever. It’s dumb.”

He looked over at Grantaire with a confused expression. “I thought you… never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing. I just… I thought you were bi.”

“What? No. I—what?” Grantaire stood there, looking at Combeferre and his stupid pin and his stupid sentence making him  _ question everything _ —

“Are you okay?”

“Y—what? Yeah. I’m fine.” He looked down at the desk, then at the bookshelf. “How did you, like, know? Like what did you do or think or whatever that made it, like, click in your head that ‘yeah, I’m pan’?”

Combeferre sighed. “Well, thinking that guys are hot is probably a good first step to, you know, being gay. Or at least bi.”

“That’s just—that’s not normal?” 

At this point Combeferre looked about ready to punch the wall. “Well, for someone attracted to people of the same gender, it is normal, yes.”

“But I’m—” He didn’t even finish the sentence. “I have to go.” He grabbed his backpack and practically sprinted out of the classroom.

Eponine was waiting at the entrance. “About fucking time.”

“I had to talk to one of the kids in study hall with—”

“Jeez, I was just kidding! I had a fun time, I was hanging out with my crush.”

“Oh, wow. Good for you.” He paused. “How did it go?”

“Uh, pretty good, I think,” she said, starting to pull her hair up into a bun. “She seems like she kind of likes me, and I know she’s queer already, I saw her phone background and it was the lesbian flag—”

“Wait, you’re into girls?”

Eponine looked at him. “R. Rufus. My dude. Please tell me that for all seven years of our friendship, you have not thought that I, Eponine Thenardier, was, am, or ever will be a heterosexual.”

“Um. I just. I thought you were straight?”

She sighed angrily, throwing her eyeliner at him. “Are you—I literally told you that Hayley Kiyoko was hot!”

“I just—okay, yeah, maybe I was stupid!”

“Yeah, you were! I figured out  _ you’re _ not straight, you didn’t have to tell me—”

“Wait, what?” He paused, looking at Eponine confusedly. “What? When? Huh?”

“You’re not straight.” She looked at him. “Right? You like guys?”

He looked down at his feet for a second, stared at Eponine for a few more minutes, then up at the ceiling of his van. “Wait. Do I like guys?”

“I’m proud of you, kiddo,” she said, wiping away an imaginary tear. “My little baby R, all grown up… all queered up—”

“Shut up,” he said, laughing a little. 

“Seriously, R, I can understand maybe not noticing me being a huge lesbian, but not even noticing your own queerness? That’s actually kind of impressive. Like, wow.”

“Yeah, blah blah blah, I know.”

“Hopefully your newfound gayness won’t affect your driving ability,” she said with a laugh. “I still kinda need to get home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! i'd like to extend a special thanks to my wonderful beta readers (theres 2 now!!!) valdera and vivelapluto, you make these chapters suck less :)
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated!


	4. leave me here a little bit longer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres some bullying and referenced slurs in here. also, it's a little short and i'm sorry! next chapter will be longer i promise.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. Study hall was crawling by at the speed of a snail wearing a ball and chain.

The day had already bored him out of his skull. School was bullshit, and they weren’t even a month in yet. He had also embarrassed himself in front of Enjolras during English class by mispronouncing the same word three times in a row. They’d laughed it off, but he still felt like an idiot. Because he was an idiot.

Checking the clock, he sighed. It was only 2:30—half an hour left. “I swear to god, if this goes any slower, I will literally die. I just want to go home already.”

Combeferre looked over at him. “Are you coming to the meeting today?”

“Jesus, there’s a meeting today, too?” He rubbed his eyes, sitting back up. “You guys are dedicated, I’ll give you that.”

“Well, we meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So. Yeah, I would say that we’re pretty, um, dedicated. Are you coming?”

Grantaire debated it in his head. On one hand, it was a waste of time for him to even go. He didn’t care about whatever social justice causes they cared about in the club. He really didn’t want to be there in the first place. It honestly bored him completely.

On the other hand… Enjolras. He was reason enough to go at all, and now that he actually knew that what he was feeling was a crush, he thought it would be better to go. That way he’d know more about what Enjolras cared about, what he was passionate about, and his friends. It would be torture, surely, but if torturing himself with the thought of being with Enjolras was the price he had to pay for seeing him every day, it would be worth it.

Oh. Right. He had to let Combeferre know about what he had figured out. Well, what Eponine had figured out. Grantaire looked down at his textbook. “About yesterday,” he began, looking back at Combeferre. “I just—um. This is kind of stupid, I guess, but you were right.”

“Right about what?”

“Um.” He gestured at the pin on Combeferre’s backpack strap. “My. My sexuality? Like, that I like guys. I talked to my friend about it, but I just… I didn’t want to admit it? I guess? It’s not really that big of a deal, but it just made me really uncomfortable, and I wanted to tell you that… yeah. You’re right.”

“That’s a very brave thing to admit,” he said quietly. “It isn’t easy to tell someone that you’re—” he paused. “Are you bi? Gay? Pan?”

“Bi. I think. I started, um, researching it? And I think I’m bi.”

“Well, I’m proud of you nonetheless. Are you going to come out to the rest of the club? They’ll accept you no matter what. Literally the entirety of the club is queer. Matteo’s gay, Jean’s bi, I think Cosette’s even pan—”

“Wait, Matteo’s gay?”

“Yes?” He looked confused. “You didn’t know? He has a rainbow pin on his backpack and everything.”

He couldn’t stop himself from thinking it—maybe I have a chance with him. Shaking his head, he forced himself to stop it. It was stupid. He didn’t have a chance with Enjolras. It wasn’t even something to consider.

“So, like, is the ABC Club the GSA? For our school, I guess?” He paused. “Because, I mean, you said they’re all queer?”

“I suppose… I mean, we don’t technically have a GSA, and we are majority queer, so… yes, I think so.” He looked over at the clock. “Only fifteen minutes left.”

“Ugh.” Grantaire sighed, slamming his textbook closed. The teacher turned her head at the speed of light and glared at him and Combeferre, staring daggers through him. She put a finger to her lips. “Sorry. It sucks, though. Like, a lot. I’m so fucking bored.”

“Do you want to do something? I think I have a sudoku book in my backpack,” he said, digging through his backpack. “It’s like, the kind that has a mix of word searches and crosswords and sudoku and stuff? With those logic puzzles in it?”

“Wow, you are a giant nerd,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah. I guess that’s cool, though! I’m not really that good at sudoku or whatever, but I’ll give it my best shot. You have a pencil or something?”

Combeferre passed him a pencil, and they got started. The pages they were on were two sets of word searches. Grantaire noticed, to his disappointment but not his surprise, that Combeferre finished much faster than he had. As he filled in the last few words, the bell rang, and he sighed.

“Thank god that it’s over,” he said, handing the puzzle book back to Combeferre. “Let’s get to the meeting, yeah? I’m actually kind of excited.”

Combeferre nodded, putting the book away and zipping his backpack. He swung it over his shoulders, and Grantaire noticed that his backpack was the same dark blue color as his cardigan.

“Ready to head out?” he asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Grantaire opened the door and gestured to let him out. Looking down at his feet, he followed right behind Combeferre until he stopped short. Grantaire ran into him, tripping over his feet.

“Hey, what happened? Is something—” He looked up and realized why Combeferre stopped.

The poster they’d put up only a few days before had been torn up at the bottom so the room number was gone, and someone had scribbled over the poster’s picture with Sharpie. The club name had been scribbled over with the same Sharpie, and above it someone had written “The Queers Club”. Some of the writing over the picture was less of a scribble and more of a mess of poorly spelled slurs.

“Oh my god,” Combeferre said, putting his hand gently on the poster. “I—I’m gonna take this down now.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire said, still in shock. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

He tore the poster off the wall and rolled it up. As he continued walking, Grantaire noticed a trail of glitter falling from the poster. It would be almost funny if someone hadn’t fucking destroyed the poster Jehan had worked so hard on.

As he walked into the classroom, Jehan smiled, jumping up from their seat. “Hey, you’re back! I didn’t expect you to be here!”

“What’s—is that one of the posters?” Feuilly pointed at it, taking it from under Combeferre’s arm and unrolling it. “Oh, shit.”

“Why would someone do that?” Cosette said, putting her hands over her mouth. “Why would they do that—just ruin someone’s property like that?”

“We have to do something about this.” Courfeyrac said, panicked. “We have to—I don’t know, we have to tell the school or something.”

“That won’t do anything.”

Everyone turned to see the source of the voice. Enjolras leaned on the wall, glaring darkly at the group.

“It won’t do anything. I saw another poster yesterday—someone defaced it like they did to that one there. I went to the office and showed them what happened, gave it to them and asked them to look into it.”

“What happened?” Jehan asked worriedly.

He laughed drily. There was no humor in it. “They told me they couldn’t do anything since we weren’t an official club, and that we shouldn’t have put up the posters in the first place.” He looked like he was about to cry. “Nothing. They did nothing. The security officer didn’t even fucking care.”

“Matteo, are you okay?” Bossuet asked cautiously, walking over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. Enjolras pushed his hand off his shoulder, crossing his arms and turning away from him.

“Leave me alone.”

He stepped back, looking hurt.

“Look, the school isn’t going to do shit. They don’t fucking care. They just want to pretend the school is actually good.” He sighed and turned back around, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s up to us now. We’re the only people who would do something about this.”

“Okay,” Combeferre said. “So what are we going to do about it?”

At this, Enjolras visibly brightened. He didn’t look happy, per se. He just looked angry. Again, that expression of righteous fury returned, and he stood back up, walking over to the table and taking out a notebook.

“Well, there’s not much we can do right now,” he said, picking up a pencil. “What can we do long-term?”

Jehan raised their hand. “Um, we could do a protest? Like, stand in front of the principal’s office or barricade ourselves in the club room?”

“I like it, but I’m not sure it would really work.” He wrote it down. “Maybe we could start spreading information around the school. Build up membership for the club, maybe? And after that, we could start making demands of the school. If we get someone else, like the law or maybe someone from the ACLU on our side, we could get them to tell the school about the laws they’re technically breaking?”

“I’m not sure it would work, either,” Combeferre said.

“Me either,” Joly said worriedly. “What if they get worse? I mean, they can’t get much worse than this, but they could. They could start cracking down on public displays of affection just for queer couples. They could start looking the other way on violence against minority students. I mean, they already do. What if they expel us for trying?”

“It will work. It has to,” Enjolras said grimly. “We’re going to do it.”

“Wait a little while,” Bahorel said. “We only have the one incident. If we can prove it, maybe look at the footage, we can prove it, maybe?”

Grantaire watched intently as Enjolras wrote everything carefully down in the notebook. He was honestly too pretty, he thought, still watching carefully. Everything he did.

Lost in his reminiscing, he almost didn’t notice when they finished and called the meeting for the day. He blinked himself awake and gathered his stuff, still kind of zoned out. Jehan walked up to him, playing with a loose strand of their hair.

“Heya, nerd, what are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he said, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “Just, uh, ready to head home, I guess.”

“So how’d you like the presentation?”

“Uh, I liked it well enough, I guess,” he said, glancing over at Enjolras, who was, unfortunately, at that exact moment, running his hand through his hair and laughing at something Courfeyrac had said. It was like a scene from a shitty rom-com or something.

Jehan looked over, then to Grantaire, then back to Enjolras, who had collapsed into a fit of giggling. “Oh. Oh, wow. No way!”

He sighed and pushed them gently out of the way. His face was burning, and he could tell he was definitely bright red.

“You have— _you_ have a crush on—”

“Shut up!” Grantaire hissed, gripping his backpack strap tightly. “Let’s just go. Come on.”

He dragged them away from the other group and left the classroom, saying a quick goodbye to Jehan before heading outside to meet up with Eponine.

“Have a good day at school?” Eponine deadpanned, leaning against the door of his van.

“Let's just go,” he huffed, jumping into the van.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for reading!! @valdera and @bluesargeants , my beta readers, thank you for making these chapters not suck. 
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated!


	5. hearts are breaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this one is so short aaaa!!  
> thanks to @vivelapluto and @valdera for being my beta readers!

The basement of Grantaire's house smelled like Flaming Hot Cheetos, and women's spray deodorant. “Man, school’s already kicking my ass and it’s only been like a month,” Eponine said with a sigh. Grantaire leaned back on the beanbag, throwing another pillow at Eponine. She laughed and grabbed another handful of Cheetos, still relaxed. 

“God, I love it when your parents aren't home,” she laughed, still watching the movie he had up on the basement TV. “And wow, this movie is  _ really _ bad. I don't think anyone could ever watch this unironically.”

“Don't knock The Room,” he protested. “It's a bad movie, sure, but it's funny! I like it!”

“You only like it because you're high,” she scoffed, crunching down on a Cheeto. “I  _ said _ we should watch Mean Girls, and I was right. Let's just stop the movie here and switch it—”

“The most iconic part is coming, like, two minutes from now!”

“And we're never gonna see it,” she said, switching it off and picking up the DVD case for Mean Girls. He sighed, but let her change the disc and watching as the opening started. 

All of a sudden, his phone buzzed. 

_ Hey, it's me, Matteo. I got your number from Cam? I had a question about Picture of Dorian Gray. _

Immediately he picked up his phone, unlocking it and typing out a response.

_ ya go ahaed, whats up??? _

_ **ahead _

_ I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about the project we're going to have to do _

_ what project _

_ It's about our story. We have to write a short article or something. _

_ uhhh ok idk what were gonna do tho _

_ Have you finished the book yet? _

_ uh ya it was good _

_ Oh, that's good. At least we don't have to avoid spoiling it for each other, right? _

_ yeah _

_ so how about that ending huh  _

_ pretty wack _

_ Yes, I would say so. _

He continued texting Enjolras for a few more minutes. Eponine elbowed him.

“You're missing all the good parts! Who are you even talking to?”

“Just a guy from English class,” he said absentmindedly, typing another response to Enjolras. She grabbed his phone and looked through the message history. 

“Ooh, doesn't look like a guy from English class to me,” she said gleefully, scrolling up. “I knew you two were friends, but this? You call him Matty? That's so adorable!”

“Shut up,” Grantaire said, taking back his phone and locking it. 

“You really like talking about how gay fictional characters are for each other, don't you?”

“They literally are. It's literally in the text.”

“But seriously, wow. I saw the pin he has on his backpack, is he—”

“Gay. He's gay.” Grantaire coughed, trying to fill the awkward silence. Eponine looked at him, her face not revealing any emotion. It was like she was trying to figure him out.

“You like him, don't you?”

He said nothing, just leaned back and stared vaguely at the screen. Eponine scooted over next to him, putting her head on Grantaire's shoulder and wrapping her arms around him, pulling him closer to her. 

“R?”

“Yeah?”

“You can tell me anything, right?”

“Of course. What are you—”

“You really, really like Matteo, don't you?” she asked, running her hand through his hair. “I only ask because I care about you.”

“For the last time, no I don’t.” Telling people was stupid. If he went around letting people know, someone would tell Enjolras eventually, and he’d ruin any chances he would have had at being his friend. Better to just suffer in silence than wreck everything.

He sighed and leaned further down in the beanbag, grabbing a blanket from the corner. Wrapping it around his shoulders, he lay back on the basement floor. Eponine gently adjusted the blanket and picked up one of her own from the pile, curling up next to him with a soft sigh. 

“Hey, R?”

“What's up?”

“You're a good pillow,” she said, putting her head onto his chest with a sigh. “And a good friend.”

His phone buzzed several times. Again. Then again, and he picked it up, checking the message. 

“It's from Matteo.”

“What's it say?” she asked, looking up at the phone. “I can't see it.”

_ I'm really tired but this was really nice talking to you _

_ I miss you for some reason _

_ Like a lot _

_ I really don't know why but I'm like about to pass out and I want to see you a lot. _

_ Whatever _

_ It doesn't matter _

_ I'll see you on Monday I guess _

“This guy is into you, and you’re bi and want a boyfriend?  Why aren't you two together yet, again?”

“I, uh… he’s definitely not into me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was bright red at this point, he could feel it, and was really regretting telling Eponine he was bi. “He’s way out of my league anyway.”

“Bullshit.” She took another handful of Cheetos and threw one at him. “You two are perfect for each other, and you fucking know it. So get off your ass and ask him out already!”

“I don’t even like him!”

“You could try to figure out why you’re so obsessed with him if you don’t like him,” she said, not unreasonably. “Or you could, I don’t know, do the studying we were supposed to be doing? The reason we’re actually supposed to be hanging out in your basement?”

“Shut up,” he said, picking up the discarded textbook and opening it. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

“Reading chapter 7,” Eponine sighed, pulling out her notebook and pencil. “And then doing the review questions at the end.”

“Did you read it yet?” He knew what the answer was, and when she laughed and just picked up the textbook, he figured he was right. 

“What’s it even about, anyway?”

“Uh, covalent bonds,” he said, looking at the heading on the chapter. Eponine sighed, flipping through her notes. “So, like, are we just gonna do the usual thing? Half and half, read the questions first and find the answers in the chapter?”

“As always,” she said. “I’ll take the first four, okay?”

“You don’t have to do more,” he said. “I can do the four, you can take the three.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” she said, waving him off. “Let’s just finish it up and we can go to sleep or whatever.”

He sighed, but finished his questions and handed them over to Eponine. “Jesus, your handwriting’s fucking awful,” she said. “How do you even read this shit? It’s like you just scribbled it out on the page.”

“Yours isn’t much better,” he said, looking down at the page. “It looks like a nine-year-old girl wrote this. Did you—are your i’s dotted with hearts? Do you actually dot your i’s with little hearts? How old are you?!”

“Come on. Nine? Don’t be a kid, R.” She laughed. “I’m at  _ least _ eleven—”

“So shut the fuck up.” They both burst out laughing, collapsing onto the beanbags and sighing. 

“You okay?” she asked after a minute. 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he replied. “I’m okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, everyone! as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed this first chapter. if you liked it, please give me some comments and kudos, and i'll see you guys next week!


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